Re: "Less than" key and PET tape drive, again

On Sat, Jan 4, 2025 at 5:57 PM Rhialto <rhialto_at_falu.nl> wrote:
> I think I asked here before if people knew about the effect on a PET
> (possibly only orginal ROM set) where if you press the < key (less than)
> while loading from tape, it prints < chars on the screen when there is
> "something" on the tape. I am fairly sure I saw that in print somewhere
> (guess: PBE magazine, or Compute!).

Yes.  I remember that effect from back in the day.

> APPARENT MALFUNCTION OF THE < KEY - Jim Butterfield
> https://archive.org/details/1980-01-compute-magazine/page/82/mode/2up
>
> I may even have posted this before but I can't find it right now. It
> does seem to indicate *some* connection between the two...
>
> But whyyyy?
>
> Now that I'm thinking about it - maybe it was not literally while
> LOADing but just pressing the < key and PLAY would do it?

Yes.  It's an undocumented/poorly-documented feature to scan tapes to
see if they have programs/data on them.  ISTR it worked on my 2001N
(3032), and not just on BASIC1 machines but I'd have to test that
again to be totally certain.

I went romping through the source but couldn't quickly find where the
actual test or print parts are in the firmware.

-ethan